As threatened, we took our boy to a dressage show and he was his usual stubborn, opinionated self.  However…he improved from one test to the other and he won a 7th place ribbon in his second test.

That was on the Sunday. 

On the Tuesday he left for Richland Park in Michigan where he was wait listed on the Young Event Horse class.  Unfortunately ‘wait listed’ was as far as he got.  If it had been a normal show I think he would have got in ok, but there was nothing normal about it.  On the Friday night the weather turned really bad and the horses had to be evacuated into trailers.  The storm wrecked the tent Solo had been stabled in, and took the roofs partially off all the other stable blocks.  The storm blew through at 6pm and by 1am the next morning all the horses were back in their stalls – a premium piece of organising by Richland Park.

The weather continued to wreak havoc and the show organisers and officials were amazing.  It is unbelievable that they managed to keep the show on the road.  The time at Richland was well spent, Solo was ridden and worked in the show rings every day and at the end of it he was settled and working as well as he does at home.  He caused quite a stir and had several admirers asking about him.

Back home late Sunday night, and off to Young Event Horse class at Equus 3D in Orangeville on the Wednesday.  I am pleased to say he came 3rd and qualified to go to Wit’s End for the finals later this month.

 

Finally we took him to Checkmate this past weekend where he did a much more obedient dressage and jumped like a superstar to finish 4th in the Open Pre Training.  Its slow and steady but we seem to be making progress, he is a lot less argumentative in general and really seems to enjoy going to shows.

 

He does a lot more lateral work now and lots of canter transitions.  He does hills but still gets grumpy, he never grew out of that.  We also lunge him about twice a week, it’s good for his back muscles which are maturing beautifully. He needs to build up a bit more at the base of his neck but I think this will come as a six year old.